


Gliding a Narrow Line

by Gynt



Category: The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9137026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gynt/pseuds/Gynt
Summary: There’s an informal understanding between the Rogues of Central City and those trying to enforce the law within it. Nobody pushes their luck too far, nobody gets hurt too badly, and nobody pushes back too hard. But now the Rogues have a new, showier, leader, and a new officer in town is questioning the police and Flash’s lack of commitment to keeping them in jail. Can the understanding hold? Should it?





	

**Author's Note:**

> The story is set in the New52 DC comics universe, sometime between the end of Rogues' Rebellion and The Flash #48, but largely ignores the events of the Venditti run which should be happening concurrently.

“The Unifier”, Doctor Saunders’ prototype power inducer, had always been an obviously tempting target for the Rogues, but the Flash had expected it to at least reach the ground before their attempt on it. But with the plane carrying it on its final descent, the rain that had been plaguing Central City all afternoon in utter disregard of its jaded forecasters had cleared with the exception of a particularly heavy cloudburst right over the final approach. 

Arriving at air-traffic control, he didn’t waste any time. “Tell that plane to stop landing and return above the cloud line. It’s flying into a trap from the Weather Wizard.”

The startled controller looked at him then pushed some buttons. “Flight 215, this is air-traffic control. Abort your descent and return to holding pattern.” 

The radio crackled. “This is Flight 215. Negative, we have an emergency on board. Commencing final touchdown.”

He didn’t wait to listen to the controller argue. Somewhere out there was the Weather Wizard, and the sooner he could find him, the sooner the plane could land safely.

 

Outside, the downpour over the aeroplane’s approach had changed. Previously it had simply been a very heavy cloudburst, but now the rain was being driven by the wind into a curtain across the route of descent. The rest of the sky was cloudless, and the sun shone fiercely through the curtain creating a brilliant rainbow as the light refracted and reflected off the raindrops.

Reflected...The Flash shook his head. “You have got to be kidding me.”

But apparently they weren’t. Even as he sprang into action, the curtain got tighter; the haze around it condensing into the single smooth sheet of water falling from sky. He was almost impressed – the fine control necessary to get the rain into a surface smooth enough to use as a mirror must be incredible. And what were the Rogues using this meteorological mastery for? Petty theft.

The one bit of good news was that this had to require all of Mardon’s attention, which meant that he couldn’t be using his powers to fly, or otherwise protect himself. So where was he? He spent a few precious seconds searching every street and rooftop, peering through every window with a view of the curtain the plane was getting ever closer to. No luck.

Next plan. If he couldn’t stop the problem at its source, he could still deal with it directly. The waterfall was being created by wind, and it could be disrupted in the same way. The rapidly falling lake at the bottom of the waterfall wasn’t an ideal venue for creating his own tornado, but he didn’t have much choice – the plane was rapidly nearing what was clearly about to be a giant portal in the sky, and the pilots still seemed to be making no attempt to avoid it.

Running in circles on the water rapidly created not just a tornado upwards, but also his own little patch of (muddy) ground. The bottom of the waterfall, never the most coherent part, was starting to spray out everywhere when something arced out of the surrounding lake towards him. He dodged it, breaking off his tornado for a moment to do so, and it fell back into the water. As it did so, he heard the Trickster cackling.

Then the water began to fizz. With remarkable rapidity, what looked like a giant blue marshmallow foamed out of the water. A giant blue, very sticky marshmallow, the Flash belatedly realised. He vibrated himself out of it, but he couldn’t create a tornado when phased, he couldn’t run on top of this stuff, and the “marshmallow” was rapidly becoming too large for him to find a free spot within range of the waterfall.

He zoomed round looking for the Trickster, and rapidly spotted him waving from a puddle. Could Weather Wizard be working from the mirror world too? He hoped not – Axel throwing things through portals was one thing, but surely Mardon couldn’t manipulate the weather from another dimension?

Plan C. Create a funnel of wind by rotating his arms. He wouldn’t have much movement, which was going to be a problem with the Trickster taking potshots at him, and the funnel would have less range than the tornado. Would the range be enough? He glanced up, and realised it didn’t matter. The plane was mere metres away from the waterfall now – if he disrupted the waterfall just a moment too late, he risked chopping the plane in half as the portal closed rather than saving it. The plane itself seemed to be wrapped in yellow and white ribbons, and there was golden glow about it – clearly Glider was getting into the action. For a moment he wondered what she was doing, then realised that the crosswinds necessary to keep the falling water smooth enough to hold a reflection would not be good for the plane.

One last chance – he had less than a second before the plane was through that portal, but the plane wasn’t the only thing that could go through. Taking on Mirror Master in his own domain was a bad plan, but he couldn’t just let the Rogues kidnap people.

Height restrictions near the airport meant he had to go a little distance to find a suitable roof for what he had in mind, but a little distance was no big thing for the Flash. He spent another moment mentally calculating the angles and velocity needed, then he accelerated along the roof and leapt for the portal. Flying through the air, he was uncomfortably aware of how vulnerable he was with nothing to gain traction against – there was a reason a common tactic amongst the Rogues was to try to make him lose his footing. Fortunately Glider was busy and he was going too fast for any of the other Rogues to react to him. He reached the portal just as the tail end of the plane reached it, and was through, into the Mirror World.

The Mirror World was weird. Uncountable mirrors hung in empty space at every angle, windows both to the city he had just left and far more exotic locales. He glanced down, and saw the mirrors going on into infinity below him – no solid ground, just individual mirrors some of which were at an angle it was possible to stand upon. He glanced behind him. Glider was still phasing the plane, allowing it to pass through the random mirrors strewn in its path unharmed. Looking ahead, he could see a glass “runway” being formed with clear space above it.

He was going to overshoot it.

He let himself. It was better than being a slow target in midair. He used the time he wasn’t concentrating on phasing through onrushing mirrors looking for the Rogues.

Glider was easy. She was still sitting on top of the plane., an expression of concentration distorting her face. Mirror Master was also easy, after a fashion. He was by the portal. And on the side of the runway. And standing on a mirror next to the runaway. And perched on top of the plane next to Glider. And in many, many other places, as far as his eyes could see – hundreds and hundreds of him, all garbed in his signature orange and green, all smirking broadly, with no way to tell the true from the false.

After a bit more looking, he spotted Trickster, half hidden behind one of the Mirror Masters. No sign of Weather Wizard, though. He had to be out in the world somewhere.

“Concentrate on getting the passengers out,” he told himself. It was unlikely the Rogues were planning to _seriously_ harm them – mass murder had never been their thing – but they were entirely capable of holding them captive in a freaky dimension whilst they shook them down for everything they had. And that was before you got to the risk of someone doing something stupid.

He came to a mirror at the right height and angle for him to run on, and executed a hairpin turn back towards the runway. The plane was taxi-ing to a halt now, and Glider had released her grip on it and was coming for him. Mirror Master operated at lower speeds, but he couldn’t have long until he too turned his attention to the speedster.

He thought fast. He could phase through the plane and grab maybe a couple of people at a time, but what to do with them when he had them? Ahead of him, he could see the portal the plane had entered through dissolving as Weather Wizard let his grip on the rain forming it relax. It wasn’t a route he could repeatedly run backwards carrying passengers along anyway.

The portal Trickster had thrown that bomb at him through? He skimmed from mirror to mirror to where Axel was now pulling out a large megaphone. He grabbed it and Axel’s bag of tricks, and flung them into the far distance.

“Oi!”

“Sorry kid. That’s one speech you’re not going to make.” He smashed the attendant mirror duplicate into shards for good measure. Thee shards immediately swung round and started homing in on him. 

“Great.” And to cap it off, there didn’t seem to be an open portal here – presumably it had been shut the moment Trickster flung the bomb through.

New plan...After last time, Mirror Master had to have put something into his gun to stop him from using it, but it might be worth a try...Then, finally, his first stroke of luck. Up above him, he spotted Marco Mardon, the Weather Wizard, stepping through a portal into the Mirror World.

He accelerated. Grab the passengers from the (still moving) plane. Phase them off the plane. Spring from platform to platform to where the unsuspecting Weather Wizard appeared to be frozen in time half way through the portal. Burst into the real world. Deposit passengers. Rinse and repeat.

Glider was heading for the portal. To block it? To protect Weather Wizard? She was slower than him, but obviously accelerating – where everyone else was a frozen statue in the surreal landscape, she had covered more distance between every trip. He pushed himself faster. That was the last of the passengers – now for the pilots.

Inside the cockpit, the two pilots were concentrating on landing the plane. Behind them, the two pilots lay bound and gagged. Mirror duplicates, then. That answered the question of why anyone would fly the plane into that portal. None of the passengers had looked like they were obviously in the middle of a medical emergency, either. He grabbed the two bound pilots, and got out of there.

Glider was mere feet away from the portal when he got there. Dodging her reaching ribbons, he bulled into Mardon, pushing him back into the real world. He deposited the pilots, and turned back to Glider. To his relief, she wasn’t following him out of the Mirror World. Instead she was blocking the portal with a wall of her ribbons. No going back, then. She sent a couple of ribbons questing out of the portal towards the Weather Wizard, but he moved him swiftly out of her reach.

“Glider. Your plans are getting crazier.”

She smirked at him. “And leaping into the portal like that was meant to be sane? Nice going there, Red, but we’ve got what we wanted. See you again next time.”

The portal cut out. He took the respite to finally look around him. He was on top of one of the higher rooftops near to the plane’s approach route, but “someone” (Mirror Master again) had created an illusion that from outside hid the fact that there was actually a flat surface with a view to the open sky at the top of the building. He shook his head. “Very sneaky, guys.” 

Time to get the rescued passengers somewhere safe, and Weather Wizard to jail.

 

Cold “rang” earlier than she’d been expecting. She took the hand mirror from Sam, and gave him a satisfied smile.

“Hey, big brother. Heard already?”

“I did – it made the national news. I see you managed to one-up the monorail.” He sounded liked he disapproved, and she said as much. He gave her an utterly insincere grin. “Hey, haven’t you heard, sis? I’m reformed now. I don’t hold with this stealing stuff anymore.”

She snorted. “No, but seriously? Marco’s trick worked, we got the loot, and nobody got hurt. Sure it didn’t go completely to plan with the Flash getting Marco, but we’ll spring him as soon as the Flash stops watching him.”

“You didn’t need to hijack an entire plane and fly it into a waterfall to get the loot. With your powers, you could have just flown onto the plane, grabbed it and flown off before the Flash even knew there was a problem. But you wanted to make a show of it.”

This old line again. “Marco had come up with a new trick, and we wanted to use it. But sure, I wanted to make a show of it. Maybe you didn’t hear after you ran off to play hero, but during the Crime Syndicate attack, some guy with a bow and arrow tried to take on the team on his own. I mean, they weren’t even trick arrows! He just shot Axel in the foot, then called on the team to surrender.”

Cold shook his head. “And you think if he’d respected the Rogues more, he wouldn’t have tried to take you on? Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe he’d have just walked away. Or maybe he’d have gone to fetch back-up before attacking you, or shot to kill. Respect cuts both ways, sis.”

“I’m not pushing to the point where people think they have to kill us on sight. Nobody got hurt, nobody was going to get hurt. The Flash rescued everyone and caught the lynchpin of the heist. That’ll keep the authorities reassured, at least.”

“You realise that if you break Marco out before everyone gets side-tracked, that’s going to make the national news as well?” 

She stared at him for a moment. “Goodbye, brother. Lovely to hear from you – thank-you for the congratulations.” She didn’t wait for a reply, but instead turned the mirror over, cutting off its light. Then she turned to Sam, who’d been standing nearby pretending not to listen in.

“He can’t possibly be serious. Leave Marco in jail until everyone forgets about this? After he did the heavy lifting on the heist?”

Sam shrugged. “It’s very Cold. He decides what’s best for the team, whether the rest of the team like it or not.”

“And then it blows up in all our faces when he’s wrong. No thank-you, I’m not going that way. Leaving people to cool their heels is one thing if they’ve mucked up, but I’m not going to do it just because they got unlucky.” She sighed. “Still, he’s not entirely wrong. Can you make a mirror duplicate for the cell?”

“Easily, but you know they’ll check for them periodically. Might buy us some time, but they’ll feel stupider when they realise they’ve been holding a hologram.” This was always a problem with Sam’s Mirror Duplicates – they were permanently destroyed by a moment without light. Needless to say, the Rogues’ cells at the local prison, Iron Heights, had been light-proofed at about the time the guards had tried to remove all reflective surfaces. The guards weren’t allowed to keep the Rogues in permanent darkness, but they could certainly turn off the lights at night and flip the switch at other random times.

She frowned. “It’s not perfect, I know.” She thought more. “If Marco keeps his head down after we spring him, and I maybe drop something to Piper implying he mucked up letting Flash get into the Mirror World, they might not question too hard why he’s still there. With luck it’ll take them a while to catch on, and then they’ll be too embarrassed to admit what actually happened. But that still needs a way to get round the dupe disappearing every time they turn off the lights. So. What can you come up with on that?”

Sam looked pensive. “Maybe incorporate a light into the duplicate or smuggle an invisible light in and hope they take a while to spot the emitter.”

“...Invisible...light?” She didn’t have the best education, but she was pretty sure that made no sense.

“Yeah. Outside the visible light spectrum. Let me have a tinker, see what I can rig up. Marco’ll probably have to stay there a day or two until I can get it working, though – some of the rays are pretty difficult to reflect.”

 

Marco had managed a couple of weeks of lying low before his patience ran out. Lisa had asked him why he didn’t just take advantage of the fact that use of his weather powers affected his mood by creating sunshine to cheer himself up, but he had retorted that that sort of control of one’s feelings was as likely as not to be addictive, and he had seen enough addicts in his lifetime to have no desire whatsoever to join them. The occasional counter-balancing of other moods his weather control had created in him was the limit of what he was prepared to consider. Besides, by the time the two weeks had passed, there had been a dozen minor crises, a few major ones, and the world’s attention had moved on, so Lisa had removed Sam’s tech, the Weather Wizard had officially escaped, and everyone was happy. Apart from Marco (sick of being cooped up) and, apparently, whoever was standing behind him.

“Seriously? I’m just getting my lunch. _Paying_ for my lunch.”As he spoke, he let the faintest of breezes stir the air. To an observer, it could just have been the air conditioning – but the breeze spoke to him, letting him know the placing of the woman holding him at gunpoint. Two people. _There_. 

“I said, hands in the air! You are under...”

A sudden gale ripped the guns from the police’s hands, then slammed them into a pile of tins which teetered for a moment before collapsing on top of them. 

The Weather Wizard turned to inspect his handiwork. An Indian policewoman and a short white policeman lay half buried beneath the cans of baked beans. “Trying to arrest _me_ , officers? With just the two of you? _Not_ a good idea.” One of them groaned at him in response. The other seemed to be unconscious. He picked up his lunch, and left.

 

“You okay?” Detective Das asked her partner Detective Evans, with some trepidation. This was her...no, don’t think like that. This was _Mardon’s_ fault.

“Two bruised ribs, the doctors say, but they don’t think I’ve got anything broken. What were you thinking, going after Mardon like that?”

She winced. She’d already had exactly the same conversation with Captain Frye. “That there was a wanted criminal walking around in broad daylight right in front of me? Plus I didn’t think he had his wand on him.”

“Rumour has it he doesn’t need it anymore. And frankly, when it comes to reasons its worth getting hospitalised in the line of duty for, interrupting a Rogue’s lunch-break isn’t at the top of my list. Seriously, Das. Next time you’re going to pull that sort of stunt, give me some warning first. You’ve just transferred; you don’t know these guys like we do.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right,” she said. I don’t know enough about what the Rogues are capable of, and because of that I nearly got us both killed.” She paused a moment, before continuing on: “I don’t get what you mean about the lunch-break, though. Mardon kidnapped a plane full of people in broad daylight. He can’t spend a fortnight in jail and then expect the police to just ignore him wandering around in colour coded civvies in broad daylight!”

Evans sighed. “Actually, he pretty much can. We normally do. You just saw how a confrontation between us and him turned out, and that was when we took him by surprise. Even if we had managed to arrest him, the rest of the Rogues would have just sprung him. Frankly, I’m amazed he spent as much as two weeks in prison.” Correctly interpreting the look on her face, he continued “No, I didn’t say I _liked_ the situation. But that doesn’t change what it is – trying to arrest him when he’s not in the middle of a crime is dangerous and pointless. Come to that, trying to arrest him when he’s in the middle of a crime isn’t exactly safe either, but at least that way you might manage to distract him long enough to prevent the crime and thereby actually achieve something.”

“So they think they can just commit a crime, and then after they’ve walked away there’ll be no repercussions? That can’t stand –it makes a mockery of the law!”

Evans sighed again. “Das, you know the case we’re supposed to be on? Tracking down the guy who murdered a family during a break-in? That guy killed more innocents than Mardon has in years, and we have a decent chance to catch him, and once we do he’ll probably stay caught. _That’s_ how I want to spend my time – making a difference. Not in hospital because I started a pointless fight with someone way out of my league. Leave the Rogues to the Flash.”

 

She listened to what Evans said. He wasn’t wrong, as such – not completely, anyway. Just short sighted. By leaving the Rogues alone, the police were sending the message that all you had to do was be sufficiently powerful, and the law wouldn’t apply to you. This wasn’t just dangerous – encouraging, as it did, criminals to escalate to become supervillains – it was also fundamentally _wrong_. The law had to apply to everyone, without fear or favour. So she did her job. She tracked down the housebreaker, and moved on to other cases. But in her spare time, she learnt everything she could about the Rogues. Next time, she wasn’t going to get people hurt because of what she should have known.

In fact, it wasn’t entirely true to say that the police ignored the Rogues when they weren’t causing trouble. One of the forensics guys had spent a fair amount of time putting together evidence files on the off-chance that they stayed in custody long enough to make it to court (which had actually happened on a couple of occasions, if only because they’d fallen out with the other Rogues). If she could get them to jail, and stop them escaping, convictions shouldn’t be a problem. If.

Consider stopping them escaping first, she decided. Here, there were three big problems. Mirror Master could use any reflective surface as a scrying focus or portal – meaning that even if they removed all the mirrors from cells, you only needed a wet surface and some light before he could find you. Keeping the Rogues in darkness had been considered and firmly rejected for use for anything other than short term usage. Not only were there legal and human rights issues, but prolonged periods of sensory deprivation had been shown to have weird effects on peoples’ psyches. The Rogues were enough of a problem as it was – nobody wanted to see what they were like when mad at the system for driving them insane.

The next problem was Glider. Existing as she did as an astral projection from her hospitalised body, conventional imprisonment was impossible, and she could phase the other rogues out of any restraints or cells. She asked if power dampeners on her hospitalised body would be possible, and was told “yes, but.” Possible, but not cheap, and it was a pretty sure thing the rest of the rogues would be along to break them off her in pretty short order. And, of course, nobody wanted a fight in the hospital.

Thirdly, the rest of the Rogues could break through Iron Heights’ defences pretty much at will anyway. This approach potentially gave the Flash time to intercept them, but was also likely to lead to a lot more destruction and the risk of a mass escape rather than just the escape of the imprisoned Rogue.

Still. There were possibilities here. The key seemed to be to take all of the Rogues down at once. Tricky when one of them had superspeed, another could create lifelike clones and all but one of them were vastly out of the police’s league (she reckoned Trickster might be possible), but not impossible with the Flash’s help. Failing that – _just keep arresting them every time they broke out._

In theory, the Flash should be able to take down the Rogues at any time they were off guard without breaking a sweat. (Did speedforce users sweat?) But he didn’t. The only times he fought them were when they were actively in the middle of a heist – by which time, Mirror Master was in his own little world, and the other Rogues had their defences up. Tactically, it made very little sense, but it fitted with what she’d seen of the Flash.

“The thing is,” she opined to the forensics tech she’d been going over the evidence against the Rogues with, “the Flash cares about saving people, but he doesn’t really care about justice.”

Allen did an amusing double-take. “That’s a pretty big statement,” he said after he’d recovered. “How exactly did you come to that conclusion?”

She shrugged. “Looking at the evidence in front of me. If someone’s in trouble right now, the Flash will turn up and get them out of it. And don’t get me wrong, that’s great. And he’ll often help arrest people as part of that. But if a crime is done and dusted, he doesn’t pay attention. The Rogues have robbed and kidnapped how many people? Yet he’s happy to leave them sitting drinking any time they’re not actively causing trouble.”

“There are relevant laws there, though. Interrupting a crime in progress is one thing. But do you really want the Flash going vigilante on anyone he thinks has committed a crime?”

She frowned. “No, of course not. What I want is him working more closely with the police. The police issue a warrant, he goes and arrests the criminals.”

“If the police were working that closely with him, they’d be at least partially responsible for his actions. Which means they’d need to know a lot more about him – who he is, for a start. And once the police knew, sooner or later it’d get out. Then you’d get his enemies doing things like going after his loved ones.”

She hadn’t thought about that. Hadn’t really thought about him having loved ones at all. Still, there was a pretty obvious flaw in the counter-argument to her point here... “So what you’re saying is that actually he cares about saving specific people more than he cares about justice?”

 

The conversation didn’t last long after that. She wanted to get hold of the Flash, see if he would agree to a closer working relationship with the police despite what Allen had said, but for a man who was nearly everywhere he was surprisingly hard to get hold of. So for now, she persuaded Captain Frye to reassign her to the Rogue task force (not that difficult – it was not one of the force’s more desired roles, although she was surprised Evans got assigned along with her) and worked on making the Rogues’ life more difficult. 

An excess of health inspections on their favourite watering holes, pressure to find their fences, suppliers and informers – little things, that impacted on their ability to commit crimes but were also designed to make their lives that bit less easy, and to make it clear that no, their actions weren’t tolerated by the authorities. She reluctantly acceded to Evans’ strident objections, and left the hospital where Golden Glider’s body was tended alone – she agreed with him that depriving her of medical care would be a step too far, and reluctantly conceded the Rogues’ reaction might be excessive (apparently it hadn’t gone well for the Royal Flash Gang when they’d tried to take her hostage once) even if her room didn’t exactly need a full length mirror in it and the source of the funds paying her hospital bills were suspect to say the least.

Her biggest success, though, and the thing that made her feel that her approach, imperfect as it was, was making real progress, was when she successfully tracked down the “Unifier” gadget that had been stolen in the plane heist, making several arrests in the process. Not of the Rogues, sadly, or even the leader of the criminal network they appeared to have fenced it to, but there was a lieutenant that was a real positive step. 

 

Glider frowned at Amunet Black. “No, I don’t know how the police found the device, but it was nothing to do with the Rogues. And no, our agreement certainly doesn’t put me under any obligation to steal it back for you.” She wondered if the woman would have dared make the request – nearly a demand – if Len had still been in charge of the Rogues. She doubted it. But she was new, and untested, and clearly the leader of Keystone City’s largest criminal network had decided to test the boundaries between the Rogues and their main supplier.

Black tapped a finger against a table. “That’s a lot of money I paid, for a device that didn’t even work properly. I think I’m due a refund at the very least.”

“We extracted it unharmed. Anyway, if it didn’t work why do you want it back?”

“Not working properly isn’t the same as not working at all. There are just some...side-effects.”

“Like?”

“Like not being able to focus it or turn it off. I’m having to keep my man sedated. If anything, this deal has put me backwards.”

“Superpowers coming with side effects.” She pretended to look thoughtful for a moment. “No, I can see how that might be completely unexpected. Seriously, though, Black. I’ll deal with the police harassing your operations, but that’s the most you’re getting from me. You gambled and you lost, but that doesn’t mean the Rogues didn’t keep their end of the bargain.”

 

Das was overseeing a raid on one of the Rogues’ more popular hangouts when things went wrong. At that hour in the morning, hardly anyone should have been about, but shortly into their search the Weather Wizard stepped into the room. This time, he was in his full supervillain attire – green and gold high collared coat over matching suit, his wand glowing golden with electricity. Behind him floated an ethereal woman in a white dress with golden ribbons, her hair streaming upwards with a complete disregard for the constraints of gravity. The Golden Glider, Lisa Snart. She was smiling, but it was an expression with no warmth or friendship in it; rather, it suggested its bearer was going to enjoy what was about to happen next. Mardon simply looked annoyed. 

She reached for her gun, but a ribbon from Glider plucked it out of its holder and flicked it through a wall. She saw one of the cops gulp, and had to suppress the reaction herself. Weather Wizard couldn’t just murder a bunch of cops without finally kicking the city out of its complacency, and she was _pretty_ sure he knew that. Pretty sure. 

“Detective,” he said. “You’ve succeeded in making yourself a nuisance. That was stupid.”

“What did you expect? To be able to just go round the city robbing and kidnapping people, with no-one caring?”

“Well, we did save the city from the Crime Syndicate. Way I see it, everyone owes us.”

She snorted. “Don’t give me that rubbish. Most people have a higher standard for being good than refusing to commit mass murder. You saved this city because you wanted to keep robbing it, and because you thought the backlash would catch Glider, not out of any great altruism or even basic human decency.”

The next moment, she was being pulled through the wall to the road outside. For a wonderful second she thought the Flash was rescuing her, but then she realised that one of Glider’s ribbons was around her waist.

Glider’s smile had become if anything even more vicious. “I thought I’d bring us all out here. After all, we wouldn’t want to make a mess of the tavern.”

She swallowed. _Pretty sure._

Glider continued. “Or perhaps you would. See, going after our fences is one thing. But going after our bar-tenders? That’s low. Petty, even.”

The Weather Wizard raised his staff in the air. “Trying to make each others’ lives miserable is a game more than just the police can play – and the Rogues can play it better than you.”

The glow of the wand shifted to blue. For a moment, Das wondered what he was doing, then she felt first one raindrop on her head, then another and another. Within seconds it was tipping it down, but the sky remained a cloudless blue. Over every police officer’s head hung their own personal raincloud, pouring out more rain than could possibly be contained within it.

“Consider this a warning. And consider your next move very carefully. Good afternoon, officers.”

The two Rogues turned and went back into the bar.

 

For a brief moment, she’d almost gone after them, but then sanity asserted itself. If she couldn’t arrest Weather Wizard after getting the drop on him, she certainly wasn’t going to achieve anything now even with back-up – and there was nothing she could do to Glider. So she went back to the station feeling defeated, walking to avoid flooding the car, and gave her report in the parking lot. By the end of the day the rain still hadn’t let up, and she spent an extremely uncomfortable night huddled in a raincoat in the bath.

The next morning she trudged into the station, the storm cloud hanging over her head an echo of her mood. As she walked, she considered her options. She had no idea how long the raincloud would last – she couldn’t remember hearing of Mardon doing anything similar before – and she’d no idea how to get rid of it. She’d tried pointing a hairdryer at it the night before, and whilst the cloud had gone a bit ragged, it hadn’t dissipated. Maybe Star Labs could do something. Maybe. 

Or maybe...A familiar red blur swept up to her as she approached the main entrance. “Detective? I hear you’ve been having some difficulty with the Weather Wizard. If you don’t mind a little run, I can help.”

“Yes. _Please._ ”

He took hold of her, and for a moment the world was a flicker of lightening against a multi-hued blur. Then they stopped again, half way across the city.

“The cloud can only move so fast,” the Flash explained. “And it doesn’t seem to have any sort of tracking system once it’s out of proximity from you. We can wait a few minutes for it to evaporate, and then I’ll return you to the station and help-out those of your colleagues I haven’t got to yet.”

“Thank-you...Flash, I wanted to talk to you, actually. About the Rogues. I’m grateful for the help you’ve just given me, and for your help shutting down their heists. But I was wondering if you’d be willing to consider working with the police more closely, to keep them locked up.”

“Bust them every time they break out, you mean?”

“Pretty much. There might be trouble finding them at times, but if they end up holing up somewhere to avoid being arrested, that’s still better than the current situation where they spend half their time in public bars.”

The Flash frowned, at least as near as she could tell underneath the mask. “I understand why you‘re asking, but there are problems. If I start blitzing the Rogues every time they break out, they’re not going to leave it as that for long. Yes, I can come out of nowhere and arrest them – but the Rogues can do something similar to me. Mirror Master means they can pretty much just wait for me to be talking to someone with my back to a reflective surface, then attack me with no warning. It’s slightly less effective without Cold around, as his gun’s perfect for it, but Weather Wizard and Glider can still make do.”

“You’re... _afraid_ of them?”

“I know what they can do. And I have responsibilities beyond just keeping the Rogues where they belong. If the Justice League needed me, but I was out of action because of the Rogues...we could be talking thousands or millions dead, for a crackdown on grand larceny. I’m sorry, Detective...”

So was she. She could understand where he was coming from – she was prepared to admit that saving the planet superseded preventing bank-robbery – but that didn’t mean the bank robberies shouldn’t still be prevented. If the Flash wouldn’t focus on it, others still could.

 

The Flash returned her to the station, and she settled down to review the reports on the Rogues’ activities. She was reading an analysis of the places the contents of the plane passengers’ luggage had turned up so far when Evans came in.

“They seem to have quite a sophisticated distribution network. I was thinking we work with the organised crime guys, track down the centre of it – nothing I’ve seen so far suggests it’s the Rogues selling directly to these outlets.”

Evans put his head in his hands. “Das. Do you have a death wish? Is that actually your big plan – provoke the Rogues into killing you, on the basis that people won’t be able to ignore the murder of a police officer?”

“What? No!” She was genuinely shocked. “I don’t want to encourage criminality, I want to stop it! And if the Rogues did murder me and end up getting away with it, what sort of message would that send?”

“Most people would have included “I don’t want to die” in there, you know.”

“Obviously that too. But I don’t think it’s a serious risk. The Rogues make a pretty big thing about not killing, and Glider implied she considered going after fences fair game.”

“That’s an...optimistic...interpretation of what she said.” He shook his head. “Really, Das...”

“I’ll adjust tactics as needed. But I’m not just going to roll over and let that bunch of _criminals_ swan around Central City whilst we pretend not to see them. Let’s hit Darcy’s tomorrow morning.”

 

The next morning, she glared at the briefing room. “Where are they all?”

“Sick.” Evans was the only other occupant of the room.

“Sick. All of them.” Her voice was flat.

“They _did_ spend a day in a perpetual downpour,” Evans offered.

“And yet, here we are, both fine, whilst the entirety of the rest of the team is on medical leave.”

“Maybe they felt their health required it?”

 

She sat at her desk and fumed. _Cowards, the lot of them._ What was this, Gotham? Didn’t they care about the law? Didn’t they understand that there was more to their oaths than a quiet life? Didn’t they...

After a while, the mental rant worked itself through, and she started to think. It was clear that she couldn’t rely on the Flash, couldn’t rely on the police, couldn’t take them on herself. So, what, then? Draft in other superheroes? Most of those outside the city would have their own problems, which left her with the Pied Piper, and she wasn’t sure he wasn’t a bit too close to the Rogues. Even if he had the power level needed. So. That left her with just one possible last option.

 

Captain Frye’s eyes nearly popped out. “You did _what?_ ”

“Got superpowers, sir.”

“Got superpowers. Just like that.”

“Yes, sir. Well, not “just like that”, but you remember the Unifier prototype that we recovered from the Rogues heist? I went to speak to Dr Saunders, and she said she thought she’d ironed out the bugs. So I volunteered as a test subject – I checked, and there’s nothing against it in regulations.”

The Captain massaged his temples. “So, these superpowers. What exactly do they let you do?”

“They let any bit of me have the properties of any bit of me. I’m still working on some of the implications, but for example...” She detached a hair from her head, and concentrated. It moved through the air, and down behind the desk. “I can see through the hair that the label on your top drawer says “new”.”

“So you can spy effectively? What’s the range?”

“Not sure, yet. Obviously I’ll have to treat that ability with the standard constraints of a wiretap, but that shouldn’t be too big a problem.”

“Obviously...I’ll need you to sit down with Standards, hammer out exactly how your powers interact with regulations. What else?”

“Limited teleportation. That hair’s there? Well...” one moment she was in front of the desk, the next, slightly to the side of it. “So can I be.”

She walked back round to her proper place. “Also, I can punch with a hair with my usual force with my fists. I won’t demonstrate that one. Not much use against, say, Girder, but he’s hardly the biggest problem and most of the Rogues aren’t any tougher than your average human. Enhance my durability a bit, although I still need to work out whether it’s bone that’s the best source for that, or something else.” She shrugged. “I’m sure there’s some other things – like I said, I’m still working on it, but I thought I should let you know now.”

“Thank-you for doing so,” Captain Frye said. “For the time being, though, I’m removing you from active duty. Until we’ve had a chance to properly consider the ramifications of your powers, physical, legal and mental.”

She nodded. “Understood, sir.” It was slightly disappointing – she wanted to be after the Rogues sooner rather than later – but not unexpected.

As she turned towards the door, Frye added “And Das? Keep this quiet for now. We’ll bring in the necessary experts, but I don’t want the press showing up on my doorstep before we’re ready for them.”

“Or the Rogues getting warning,” she agreed. “But I’d like to bring in my partner, Evans.”

“Before you go back on active duty,” Frye promised. “But not immediately. I’ll let you know when.”

“Yes sir.”

 

“So. You’re tough as nails?”

She sighed. Over the last few weeks, she had been poked, prodded, interviewed, assessed, lectured, investigated for potential abuse of her position in approaching Dr Saunders, and now Evans was making bad jokes. She took refuge in nitpicking.

“Strictly speaking, that phrase is the wrong type of nail.”

He ignored her, and escalated. “You realise you need a codename? Two alliterative words – this is Central City.”

“I’ll be sure to mention that to Trickster when we arrest him. Can we concentrate on the arresting part, though?”

“If you don’t come up with something, someone else will. Probably Picture News. How about...the Plenary Plod?” He was grinning slightly.

“You’re not serious. What does that even mean?”

“Plenary sort of means totally complete, whole. You’re one unified person. Plod’s just slang for the police back in Britain.” Her face must have shown what she thought of most nicknames for the police. “Hey, it’s not even _that_ derogatory! Mostly what it means is that I‘m not bluffing about someone else coming up with a codename for you if you don’t, though.”

“I’ll think about it.” Now can we _please_ get back to planning the arrest, before the Rogues die of old age?”

 

Marco’s little storm-clouds had done the trick – the last few weeks had been quiet for the Rogues. Black hadn’t been entirely satisfied with how she’d dealt with the police, but resorting to flat out murder of someone who didn’t even have any superpowers would have been an admission of a lack of creativity, at least as she saw it. It amused her how making people’s lives pettily unpleasant could be just as effective as flat-out threats – perhaps it came down to the difficulty in feeling heroic whilst cold, wet and miserable. She’d been a bit worried when the Flash had interfered that the police might decide that they could throw off anything the Rogues did against them, but luckily they’d shown more sense – it wasn’t true, but some of her potential responses escalated things more than she really wanted. So now they were back in the bar, having a relaxing evening after an afternoon spent plotting their next heist.

“This is the police! You are under arrest!”

Sam was up and diving for a mirror before the sudden voice had got half-way through “police”. She sped herself up, and used one of her ribbons to turn him intangible. The rest of the Rogues were scrambling to their feet and pulling weapons, but it wasn’t clear where to point them. The voice appeared to be coming from empty space, but when she used her ribbons to sweep the area, they didn’t find anything of substance. Not invisible then. She saw Weather Wizard stagger, before suddenly a leaden weight suffused her being and everything went dark.

 

After the freedom and grace of her astral form, her body would have been a burden even if it had been in perfect working order. However, the fallout from the genome recoder explosion which had given her her powers had also left her permanently crippled and confined to a hospital bed. An easy target for anyone who dared strike at her. 

She opened her eyes. She was in her hospital room, as was a slightly familiar looking policeman. After a moment, she placed him – he was one of the people beclouded by Marco.

“Lisa Snart?”

She tried to say yes, but her voice was a whisper cracked with disuse. He frowned , and made a sign, and an orderly brought her a drink, feeding her it sip by sip. She smiled gratefully at him when he was done, keeping her fury at her weakness hidden. She was in their power – so play along, don’t do anything to provoke them until you can win.

“Yes?” Her voice was clearer, but still a whisper.

“You are under arrest for kidnap, assault, theft, conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy...” She listened to the long list. No attempted murder, which probably meant that they didn’t think they could make her attack on Elias stick rather than that they actually believed her framing of the Flash for it. Small mercies.

“You have the right to remain silent, but anything you do say may be used against you in a court of law...Do you understand each of these rights I have explained to you?”

“Yes, thank-you officer. What happened in the bar?”

He smiled. “Let’s just say there’s a new super in town. Now then, I have some questions of my own. You are Lisa Snart, also known as Glider?”

She smiled back at him. “I think I’d like my lawyer, please.”

 

He gave way with relatively good grace, leaving her with space to think (and two guards). There was some contraption on her head which was presumably what was blocking her powers. She tested it briefly, but unsurprisingly it was well secured. The guards looked a bit nervous, and she didn’t blame them. Two guards was overkill for her current situation – she doubted she could walk a step – but at the same time useless the moment she got her powers back or any of the Rogues came along. But would any of the Rogues be coming?

She thought through her options, her mind frustratingly no longer possessed of the darting grace it had in her astral form. She could still put things together, though. Just more slowly. On her own, her options were highly limited. She needed to either find a way to remove the power dampener, or to persuade someone to spirit her out. Neither seemed likely to be easy, although it wouldn’t hurt to pay close attention to the guards if they relaxed enough to talk in front of her.

She wondered whether they’d gone after her brother as well. Probably not, she decided, unless the timing of this arrest had been triggered by him blowing his pardon. Assuming she was right, he’d probably spring the Rogues eventually. And then promptly take back over the leadership again, after she’d seen them all incarcerated and unable to escape thanks to someone who wasn’t even the Flash. She really needed to get out of here before that could happen.

She tabled the question of how to get out of there for now, and moved onto the question of how she’d got into here. The power nullifier in itself wasn’t such a surprise – clearly the police had timed putting it on her to coincide with the main attack on the Rogues, but that didn’t tell her much she didn’t already know – the voice had actually _identified_ itself as the police. The nature of the attack on the Rogues was more interesting. No one visible, no-one _invisible_ that she’d been able to feel, not the Flash’s MO and she doubted anyone else could go fast enough to be undetectable to her...what did that leave?...Oh. Oh, the little...

A flash of orange caught her eye even as the policeman she’d been talking to earlier stepped back into the room. “Sam, stop! Don’t open that portal!”

 

Detective Das cursed. It had been bad enough that she hadn’t quite managed to knock out Scudder before he could get into his mirror world. But she’d managed to get a hair on him, and apparently her powers did work cross-dimensionally, which just left her with the problem of getting him out again. Now, though, she focussed on eavesdropping on the pair, even as her radio buzzed with Glider’s guards sounding the alarm.

“Lisa! You okay? Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier – got knocked out in the initial attack just as I was passing into the mirror world.”

“This thing’s blocking my powers, but otherwise, sure. You need to not open a portal out of mirror world though – I think I they hit us with that gizmo from the plane. If I’m right, they’ve got some sort of link on you just waiting for you to open a portal so they can hit you through it and arrest you.”

Das cursed again. _Pretty much._ Worse, Scudder’s voice when he next spoke sounded decidedly smug.

“Going after me like that? In _my_ world? Let’s see, now...”

And her connection abruptly vanished. Her awareness snapped back to her main body where she could do little but listen to the chaos coming over the radio. It didn’t last long.

 

The rest of the Rogues were out within the hour. She managed to activate her connection to Weather Wizard’s cell before the Rogues got there, but it didn’t do her much good. Glider simply ghosted in, grabbed him and disappeared back into the Mirror World. A few moments later that connection went dead as well. She made sure her connections in the Rogues’ main hangouts were in place, then went to face Captain Frye.

Frye wasn’t happy, especially when she told him the Rogues appeared to have worked out what she’d done. She’d turned off the light when she’d entered the room to limit Mirror Master’s ability to eavesdrop via reflections, but she could still hear the frustration in his voice.

“How did they catch on so fast? Did they have inside intel?”

“Not necessarily, sir. They stole the device in the first place; presumably they had some idea of what it did. I hadn’t anticipated them working it out quickly enough to make a difference for this operation, though. The _good_ news is that my connections to their hideouts are still intact – it’s only the ones on their persons which have been wiped. That suggests to me that whatever Scudder’s doing to wipe them, he can only do it in his mirror world.”

“If they’ve figured out what you’re doing, they’ll change the hideouts. I’m more worried about what their next move is going to be. The Rogues have always avoided targeting the police, but how much of that was because the police weren’t a major threat to them? You and Evans need to take precautions. I know, I know...” he forestalled her intervention. “The Rogues have only met you briefly. They might not have recognised your voice. But they might have done. Or they might make the connection through Evans.”

She shrugged, for all that he couldn’t see it. “There’s hardly enough Indian women on the force for a disguise to make much difference. I’d like to keep hitting them, sir. Keep myself in a dark room where Mirror Master can’t find me, and send out links to hassle the Rogues whenever they step into the world.”

“The dark room, yes. At least until we’ve got a measure on how they’re reacting. Keeping hitting them, no. I want to de-escalate this, not back them into a corner.” Frye’s tone .was not encouraging, but she pressed the point regardless.

“Sir. Our role is to enforce the law – to catch criminals. We shouldn’t be trying to make de-escalate – we should be trying to _win_.”

“Our role is _also_ to protect the population. Getting into a prolonged fight with the Rogues goes against that.”

“But the Rogues endanger the population!” She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice, but was pretty sure she’d failed miserably.

“Yes, but as things stand mostly they endanger their wealth rather than their lives. Which, yes,” he held up a hand to forestall her, “we should still be trying to prevent. But I agreed to authorise your plan in the hope that we could take the Rogues off the streets for a significant period of time. You didn’t come close to achieving that. I’m re-tasking you to Vice. Your abilities can still be very useful, even aside from the Rogues.”

And there it was. She’d failed.

She’d have to come up with a new plan.

 

She found Evans in a bed in the hospital, looking rather the worse for wear. He jumped when she said his name. 

“Das, you’re as bad as Scudder! At least with him you can see the reflection.”

“Sorry. You okay?”

“Been better. Doctors are keeping me in overnight for observation, in case I’ve got a concussion. Was seeing double for a bit, but that could just have been Mirror Master.”

“Ouch. I hope you’re feeling better tomorrow.”

“Thanks. How are things back at the precinct?”

She glanced round the room, which contained no obvious signs of Mirror Master. “Not good. Frye’s taken me off the Rogue task force. Don’t know if you’re still on it. I’m going to have to come up with a new plan good enough to persuade him to put me back on the job, whilst dealing with Vice.”

“Or...you could just focus on Vice? It’s important work, Das – you’ll basically be taking on the mafia.”

“No. I’ll be taking on the non-super-powered version of the mafia, and it’s not like they account for that much in Central City. Meanwhile, the real mafia has half the city afraid to rock the boat.”

“And yet that non-powered version of the mafia _still_ accounts for a lot more death and misery than our garishly garbed group of thieves. Why are you so focussed on the Rogues? Just because Mardon humiliated you? Or is it the prestige?”

“No!” she said, indignant. “That incident with Mardon might have opened my eyes, but this is about the law! You can’t seriously think that a bunch of people who routinely flout the law without apparent consequence isn’t a problem?”

“Sure, it’s a problem. But it’s not worth the resources it would take to fix it. If we even could! Short of getting them all poisoned or something, the only thing we can do is leave it to the Flash. He stops most of their trouble, anyway.” He paused. “And for the love of God, don’t get ideas on that poisoning.”

“I know you’re joking, but you really don’t understand, do you?” she asked, the frustration evident in her voice. “I’m not going to start having them poisoned or sniped or any of the various other methods of assassination that, okay, have occurred to me. Breaking the law to uphold it would just be twisted.”

“And if any of them survived, the rest would still be capable of murdering half a precinct in revenge. See, I think I do understand you, Das. You’re so busy focussing on big principles, you forget about their impact on _people_. And that’s starting to scare me.”

“It’s all _about_ their impact on people.” She realised her voice was getting too loud, and moderated it. “Upholding principles is always going to lead to a better outcome in the long-run than taking easy shortcuts.”

“In the long run, we’re all dead.” He sighed. “We’re not going to agree on this, Das, and I should be resting. As should you.”

“Alright. I’ve leave you to it. Get better soon.”

“Thanks. And Das? That hair is spooky. Can you stick it somewhere else, and knock before you come in?”

“Fine.”

 

Her work with the Vice squad left her feeling simultaneously wasted and ineffective. The “wasted” had been apparent from day one, and she still spent a fair number of her off hours coming up with ideas to take down and _keep_ down the Rogues. Unfortunately finding Scudder outside his Mirror dimension was proving to be surprisingly difficult, and without him down she knew Frye wasn’t going to give her the go-ahead in any situation other than the middle of an ongoing crime spree.

The “ineffective”, though, was more of a surprise. There were two major problems. The first was that her powers didn’t allow for an easy method of recording criminal activity, even once a bugging warrant had been obtained. She could see and hear what was going on, but not provide evidence for it in a court of law beyond her own testimony – which, granted, wasn’t insignificant, but was still several steps below having documentary proof. She’d tried using her powers to sneak in recording devices, of course, but this connected directly into the second problem. 

She was becoming increasingly convinced that her efforts were being sabotaged. Bugs planted were rapidly discovered, or mysteriously stopped working. Raids organised on meetings found only empty rooms. Contraband located was missing when the police arrived. Not _everything_ went wrong, but enough did, and the problems were clearly focussed on her – police actions which she only heard about later generally went off without a hitch, or at least no more hitches than usual. She had a pretty good idea who was behind the sabotage, backed up by the discovery of several payments from the twin cities’ gangs to the Rogues. She didn’t understand how they were doing it, though, or more importantly, how to stop it. Mirror Master had an excellent powerset for information gathering, yes, but even if he had somehow overcome the limitation of his image appearing in a surface he was spying through, that still wouldn’t explain how he would pick up that she had a short length of hair in a dusty corner of a room. 

Matters came to a head when she was summoned in person early one morning to an alley in one of Keystone’s seedier districts by Rawlings, the head of Vice. As she shifted her main body onto the scene, she could see several forensics guys beginning to set up around what looked unpleasantly like major bloodstains. 

She spotted Rawlings off to one side of the scene and walked over to her. “What happened?”

Rawlings gave her an unfavourable look. “Drummond was found here a couple of hours ago. He’d been beaten within half an inch of his life.”

“Drummond.” The name was familiar. “The informant in Black’s network?” 

“That’s right. Two years he’d been working for us, and then he got mentioned to you a couple of days ago, and now this.”

Das shook her head. “I’ve known about Drummond for some time. He was a big part of how we recovered the Unifier from Black after the Rogues fenced it to her. Case files should confirm. That was the first time it’s been brought up around me for a little while, though. Certainly since I tried to take down the Rogues.”

She recognised Allen amongst the forensic scientists, and beckoned him over. “Allen! Any evidence of the Rogues being involved in this?”

“Hello, Detective Das. Haven’t seen you out and about in a while. I’ll need to run some analyses and get the report from the hospital before I can give you anything close to definite. Nothing I’ve seen so far indicates it, though.”

“Black’s perfectly capable of having one of her own men beaten to a pulp without assistance,” Rawlings said. “He’s lucky he’s not dead.”

She shook her head in frustration. “The Rogues might not have carried out this attack, but I think they’ve got to be spying on me somehow. This timing’s too much of a co-incidence. I wish I could spy on _them_ to confirm it, but every time I send a connection into the Mirror World it breaks, and they’re being careful what they say outside it.”

Allen looked pensive. “You say your connection breaks when you send them into the Mirror World. But isn’t Scudder all about _reflections_?”

She stared at him for a long moment. “You mean...he isn’t destroying the connections, he’s reversing them. Anyone can spy on me using the hairs I’ve put in the Mirror World. Anything anyone does to the hair...happens to me.”

“That would certainly explain a lot,” said Rawlings. “I’m taking you off active duty effective immediately. Avoid learning any information about any active cases. Or closed cases, for that matter. I’m going to speak with Captain Frye about this.”

 

Lisa Snart leaned back on a handy mirror edge, a satisfied smile playing around her lips.

“I think that went well, love, don’t you? Good work on reflecting back the effect on those connections. We got that meddling policewoman transferred out of the city, amassed a bunch of favours owed and showed Black it was her own fault she lost hold of the Unifier in the process.”

Sam smiled back at her. “And all without needing to break a single rule.”

“We’re the Rogues. No mere cop is going to beat us. And now that we’re free of the distraction, I have a few new plans for the team.”


End file.
